The present invention relates to apparatuses, systems, and associated methods for high-throughput manufacturing organic porous masses that may be used in flavored smoke filters.
Flavored smoking devices (e.g., cigarettes) make up a large market segment, especially in Eastern Asia, Indonesia, and India. Conventionally, flavored smoking devices are made by spraying a flavorant (typically an essential oil) in an alcohol solution onto the tobacco or filters used to make up the smoking devices. When such tobacco is smoked, the flavorant volatilizes and enters the smoke stream imparting flavor to the smoker. However, much of the taste effect of the flavorant is lost in the sidestream smoke of the smoking devices as the tobacco burns with only a small percentage reaching the smoker through the filter. As a result, excessive amounts of flavorant are generally applied to the tobacco in order to achieve a satisfactory taste effect.
Furthermore, a significant amount of the flavorant is lost to the atmosphere during the spraying application, which is the primary way of applying it to the tobacco. Another related disadvantage is that during storage and distribution of the smoking devices, a large percentage of the volatile flavorant is lost from the tobacco through the package, thereby limiting the effective shelf life of the product.
In alternate methods to impart flavor to cigarettes, various carbon or silica gel materials have been impregnated with flavorant, and the impregnated material is then used as the filter element in a cigarette. While these techniques provide some advantages over use of flavorant in tobacco, they still leave much to be desired, particularly insofar as delivery of the flavoring agent during smoking of the cigarette, and minimal use of flavoring agent in order to obtain a satisfactory taste in the final cigarette product. Further, the use of particulate additives (e.g., carbon and silica) can cause the draw resistance (measured as encapsulated pressure drop, “EPD”) of the filter to change, which may turn off consumers.
Therefore, despite continued research, there remains an interest in developing improved and more effective mechanisms for adding flavorant to smoking devices that minimally affect draw characteristics of the smoking device.